Dear Friends in Faith,
A retired professor and writer within the Christian Reformed Church, Sierd Woudstra, recently joined the small circle of our readership. He has long pressed his denomination to change its position on reprobation, which amounts to a doctrine of predestination to everlasting hell for much of the human race. He sent us a paper he had written in introducing Jan Bondas book, The One Purpose of God: An Answer to the Doctrine of Eternal Punishment (Eerdmans, 1998). This article, entitled It Does Not Say So in the Bible, traces Woudstras growing confidence that Gods grace will not disappoint us regarding the final destiny of humanity.
Dean Hough has begun a series of studies in Unsearchable Riches magazine under the general title, If One Died For the Sake of All, which seeks to show the vital relationship between every scriptural revelation concerning Christ and His death for sinners and the truth that God is the Saviour of all mankind. Gods grace, to use the revelation chosen by Woudstra, can never be really understood and appreciated alongside the doctrine of everlasting torment. The love of Christ, to use the revelation discussed in the January U.R. article, can never be grasped unless His death was for all, and all are included in that death (2 Cor.5:14,15).
A very interesting point made in the book Christ Triumphant by Thomas Allin is this:
Can what is called bad in man be called good in God? He then illustrates an earthly father bidding his child to cross a very precarious bridge across a gulf, fearful and fathomless. The father says that on the other side is a prize beyond estimate, but to get to it the child is warned to not look to the left or the right. As it turns out, the boy is heedless, the bridge quivers and the boy is sent down into the deep and impaled on the rocks below, and for years cries out to his father begging for help. The father says He was warned and he suffers justly. This earthly father is unmoved by his childs cries. We call this bad in the human. If God is like this to His children, how can we call Him good when this is called bad in man?

We begin our monthly Fellowships this year on February 19 in the Grand Rapids suburb of Wyoming, Michigan. As in recent years, we will meet at the Pinery Apartments, 2300 Newstead S.W. from 11:00 to 4:00 (potluck meal at noon), with Orville Hunt serving as host. There will be several speakers, including T. M. and Ken Pridemore from Ohio. For further information phone Orville.
The other meetings for this year are scheduled as follows:
March 18, Almont, Michigan
April 8, Kitchener/Waterloo, Ontario
May 12,13, Kitchener/Waterloo, Ontario
June 9-11, Willard, Ohio
July 15, Eaton Rapids, Michigan
August 4-6, Baldwin, Michigan
September 2, Grand Rapids, Michigan
October 6-8, Baldwin, Michigan
November 4, Almont, Michigan